Hip Hop Tops All Genres In On-Demand Streaming

Hip hop seems to be as popular as ever and we at Stash are very happy about that. In the world of on-demand streaming, the genre has topped all other genres with 29% of all streams in 2014, reports BuzzFeed.

Behind hip hop is rock (25%), pop (21%), EDM (7%), and country (6%). In the first quarter of 2015, hip hop was also the most streamed genre.

There’s more too. More than a third of the 14 albums that topped the Billboard 200 this year were hip hop albums. The aforementioned projects are among them, as well as the soundtrack for Empire and Wale’s The Album About Nothing.

A study by GMI Market Research, found that the average age of users of major music platforms were: Spotify, 28; Pandora, 32; iTunes, 34; SiriusXM, 42; terrestrial radio, 43. And of a survey of over 2,500 music listeners, 27% of hip hop fans strongly agreed with the statement: “I often discuss music with my friends,” compared to 28% of EDM fans, 21% of rock fans, and 17% of pop/top 40 fans.

Hip hop also has a long standing tradition of gifting free music, too. “It’s worth remembering that Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late mixtape broke on-demand streaming records, only after being pulled from traditional mixtape destinations like SoundCloud and LiveMixtapes,” said the report.